This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-299509, filed Oct. 11, 2002, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color reversal photographic light-sensitive material having an improved color reproduction, and particularly to a color reversal photographic light-sensitive material which is superior in skin color reproduction and in faithful color reproduction and which shows a slight change with respect to light and shade of an object and to variation in exposure. Moreover, the present invention relates to a color reversal-photographic light-sensitive material improved in adaptability for various light sources and in color temperature dependency of light source.
2. Description of the Related Art
For color reversal photographic light-sensitive materials, the color reproduction is an important feature. Heretofore, there have been made many attempts to improve the color reproduction, such as correction of side absorption of coloring materials by means of masking and utilization of an interimage effect.
In particular, the reproduction of xe2x80x9cskin colorxe2x80x9d is important in the field of fashion portrait photographing and it has been required to be improved.
However, in the reproduction of the color of the human skin, there is some difference between the real skin color and a skin color favorable to be reproduced. For example, although a normal skin color is desired to have a chroma higher than the real tone, it is preferable that no defects such as pimples be noticeable. It, therefore, is not necessarily proper to reproduce the real tone of the skin faithfully. Moreover, the human eyes are very sensitive to skin color and can recognize a slight color difference in skin color, which difference would not be noticed in case of a normal color. Accordingly, the reproduction of skin color has some difficulty due to the necessity for an extremely precise control of color reproduction.
As a technology for improving the reproduction of skin color, disclosed is a color reversal photographic element comprising interimage effect controlling means, which element can reproduce a red tint of high relative chroma and a yellow-red tint (skin color) of substantially low relative chroma (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,590). However, the color reversal photographic element of this invention defines the relative chroma of a yellow-red tint (skin color) only. There is no reference to the hue of skin color.
On the other hand, a color reversal photographic light-sensitive material comprising interimage effect controlling means, wherein chroma and hue are defined with respect to xe2x80x9cskin colorxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cred-tint skin colorxe2x80x9d (see, or example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,048,673). However, this invention also provides no definition relating to a chroma ratio between skin colors different in brightness and, therefore, is not satisfactory with respect to improvement in skin color. This invention includes a description that there may be arranged an interimage effect imparting layer having a spectral sensitivity distribution different than that of a main blue-, green- and red-sensitive layers. However, it does not disclose any specific approach. Moreover, there is no description to teach the usefulness of the two kinds of interimage effect imparting layers.
An object of the present invention is to provide a silver halide color reversal photographic light-sensitive material having an improved color reproduction and particularly to provide a color reversal photographic light-sensitive material which is superior in skin color reproduction and in faithful color reproduction and which shows a slight change with respect to light and shade of an object and to variation in exposure. Moreover, another object of the present invention is to provide a color reversal photographic light-sensitive material improved in adaptability for various light sources and in color temperature dependency of light source.
The objects of the invention have been attained by the following approaches.
(1) A silver halide color reversal photographic light-sensitive material having on a transparent support at least one blue-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing a yellow-coloring coupler, at least one green-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing a magenta-coloring coupler and at least one red-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing a cyan-coloring coupler, wherein the photographic light-sensitive material comprising at least one interimage effect imparting layer (a) defined below and at least one interimage effect imparting layer (b) defined below in addition to the blue-, green- and red-sensitive silver halide emulsion layers, wherein, when the photographic light-sensitive material is exposed to light of a xe2x80x9cskin colorxe2x80x9d having the spectral distribution of Table 1 and is then subjected to development, a ratio of the chroma C*70 at a brightness L*=70 represented by CIE Lab color system to the chroma C*50 at a brightness L*=50, C*70/C*50, is 0.7 or more.
(a) an interimage effect imparting layer containing a short-wavelength green-sensitive silver halide emulsion having a weight-averaged wavelength of a spectral sensitivity distribution in the range of 500 nm to 560 nm;
(b) an interimage effect imparting layer containing a red-sensitive silver halide emulsion having a weight-averaged wavelength of a spectral sensitivity distribution in the range of 580 nm to 700 nm.
(2) The silver halide color reversal photographic light-sensitive material described in item (1) above, wherein a ratio of the chroma C*20 at a brightness L*=20 to the chroma C*50 at a brightness L*=50, C*20/C*50, is 0.7 or more.
(3) The silver halide color reversal photographic light-sensitive material described in items (1) or (2) above, wherein the standard deviation of the hue angle in the CIE Lab color system of a xe2x80x9cskin colorxe2x80x9d image that is reproduced by the photographic light-sensitive material is within 1.0 in the range of brightness L*=20 to 70.
(4) The silver halide color reversal photographic light-sensitive material described in any one of items (1) to (3) above, wherein when the photographic light-sensitive material is exposed to light having a xe2x80x9cgrayxe2x80x9d spectral reflectance distribution shown in Table 2 and is then subjected to development, the chroma C* value represented in the CIE Lab color system of a xe2x80x9cgrayxe2x80x9d image that is reproduced by the photographic light-sensitive material, is 0 or more, but 10 or less, in the range of L*=20 to 70.
(5) The silver halide color reversal photographic light-sensitive material described in any one of items (1) to (4) above, wherein the weight-averaged wavelength of the spectral sensitivity distribution of the red-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer is 580 nm or more and 630 nm or less and the weight-averaged wavelength of the spectral sensitivity distribution of the green-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer is 520 nm or more and 560 nm or less.